Karina squints, and for a brief moment, her face resembles Pavel. “This isn’t theater, Willow. The Bratva is something you wouldn’t understand.”
Willow rolls her eyes. “I don’t need to understand it to know it’s backward as fuck.”
I watch helplessly as the two size each other up. Fantastic—they’re going to tear each other apart. In the middle of the dress shop.
With a ton of brigadiers watching.
None of them seem concerned yet, but I pick up on the growing tension.
Willow crosses her arms while Karina stares right back. I’m trying to think of how to deescalate the situation when Karina nods. “This marriage will give Liya a lot of power. She’ll be stepping into a unique position.”
“What a strange way to sayslavery.”
“In some ways,” Karina admits while glancing toward me with a sympathetic expression. “But in many other ways, she will be a queen.”
Willow pauses with a look of discontent. I can hear the ticking time bomb, smell the gunpowder, feel the way the ground prepares for detonation. Her veins are bulging from how hard she’s winding up. Any minute now she’ll paint the whole shop red.
But the explosion never comes.
She sighs and drops her arms. “The queen of brawn? Or brains?”
“A little of both.”
“Doesn’t seem like there are a lot of brains around here.”
A brigadier steps forward. Irritation rolls from him as he towers over Willow. She puffs up, ready to tell him to back the fuck off. I’m pale with fear, but Karina calls the man off with just a tip of her head.
A slave in some ways. A queen in others.
“Could you two just…” The fabric under my palms burns with sweat and terror. “Willow, I need you tobehave.”
“Hey, I didn’t start this,” she argues.
I roll my eyes. “Okay, but that doesn’t mean you have tofinish it.”
“Geez, so sensitive,” Willow teases while brushing her hands on her pants. “Why are there so many of them, anyway? It’s like a bro night at the gym in here.”
Karina shrugs. “Pavel gets paranoid.”
“Are they supposed to look that mean?”
“Would you prefer bears?”
“For what it’s worth, I like the eye candy.” Willow chuckles. “But I’d prefer much less hairy than that and much moredaddy.”
I roll my eyes while the two of them laugh. God, I don’t think I can do this without them.
And I don’t want to.
Willow collects the dresses from my arms. “All right; time to try these on.”
“But I haven’t decided—”
“That’s why you have to try them on, girl. Let’s go.”
Do I argue? No.
Do I want to argue?Absolutely.